It allows us to say good-bye to guilt, blame and shame. It purifies the heart and soul and puts us in touch with all that is sacred.

Through forgiveness, we connect with that which is greater than ourselves and become the person God intended us to be.

The key to forgiveness is the willingness to make the effort. How long it takes depends on your belief system.

If you think it can’t be done, it won’t happen. If you believe it will take years, that will be your experience.

But if you are willing to believe that it can be done in an instant, that is all it will take.

TheStepping Stonesto Forgiveness

Be open to the possibility of changing your beliefs about forgiveness and recognize that forgiveness is an act of strength, not weakness.

Be willing to let go of being a Choose to believe that holding on to grievances and unforgiving thoughts is choosing to suffer. Find no value in self-pity.

Remind yourself that your anger and judgments can’t change the past or punish someone else, but they can hurt. The events of the past cannot hurt you now, but your thoughts about the past can cause you immense distress and pain. Recognize that any emotional pain you feel this moment is caused only by your own thoughts.

See the value of giving up, not some, but all of your It is no coincidence that the happiest people are those who choose not to judge and know the value of forgiveness.

Recognize that holding on to anger will not bring you what your truly want. Ask yourself this question, “Does holding on to my justified anger really bring me peace of mind?” Anger and peace; judgment and happiness do not occur at the same time.

See that there is no value in punishing yourself. Once you truly recognize that your angry, unhappy thoughts about the past are poisoning your life, you will embrace forgiveness and know the meaning of love.

Believe that forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past! Accept your past, forgive your past, and embrace the present and future with hope! There is no law forcing you to remain a victim of the past.

Choose to be happy rather than When we stop trying to control others and focus instead on our own thoughts, we give ourselves the gift of freedom and peace.

Believe that you have the power to choose the thoughts you put into your mind. Perhaps the greatest gift we have been given is the power to choose loving thoughts rather than angry ones. Your mind is not a dumpster that will remain unaffected by the trash you put into it. Treat it like a garden and it will blossom.

Be willing to make peace of mind your only goal and believe that forgiveness is the key to happiness.Regardless of the chaos around us, we can know peace if that is our single goal. Choose not to let outside circumstances or people decide whether you will be happy. Anger, judgments and unforgiving thoughts make suffer, and releasing them brings us joy.

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven’t thought about it, don’t have it on their schedule, didn’t know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.

I got to thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I’ve tried to be a little more flexible. How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn’t suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed?

Does the word “refrigeration” mean nothing to you?

How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched ‘Jeopardy’ on television? I cannot count the times I called my sister and said, “How about going to lunch in a half hour?” She would gasp and stammer, “I can’t. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I Wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, it looks like rain.”

And my personal favourite: “It’s Monday.”

She died a few years ago. We never did have lunch together. Because Americans cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!

We’ll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Stevie toilet- trained. We’ll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet. We’ll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college. Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer.

One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of “I’m going to”, “I plan on”, and “Someday, when things are settled down a bit.”

When anyone calls my ‘seize the moment’ friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you’re ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Roller blades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord.

My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It’s just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process. The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.

Now…go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to……not something on your SHOULD DO list..

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting? Make sure you read this to the end; you will understand why I sent this to you.

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

Do you run through each day on the fly? When you ask “How are you?” Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head?

Ever told your child, “We’ll do it tomorrow.” And in your haste, not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let a good friendship die? Just call to say “Hi”? When you worry and hurry through your day, It is like an unopened gift….Thrown away… Life is not a race. Take it slower.

She was six years old when I first met her on the beach near where I live. I drive to this beach, a distance of three or four miles, whenever the world begins to close in on me. She was building a sandcastle or something and looked up, her eyes as blue as the sea.

“Hello,” she said.

I answered with a nod, not really in the mood to bother with a small child. “I’m building,” she said.

“I see that. What is it?” I asked, not really caring. “Oh, I don’t know, I just like the feel of sand.”

That sounds good, I thought, and slipped off my shoes. A sandpiper glided by.

“That’s a joy,” the child said. “It’s a what?”

“It’s a joy. My mama says sandpipers come to bring us joy.”

The bird went gliding down the beach. Good-bye joy, I muttered to myself, Hello pain, and turned to walk on. I was depressed, my life seemed completely out of balance.

Looking at her, I noticed the delicate fairness of her face. “Where do you live?” I asked.

“Over there.” She pointed toward a row of summer cottages. Strange, I thought, in winter.

“Where do you go to school?”

“I don’t go to school. Mommy says we’re on vacation.”

She chattered little girl talk as we strolled up the beach, but my mind was on other things. When I left for home, Wendy said it had been a happy day. Feeling surprisingly better, I smiled at her and agreed.

Three weeks later, I rushed to my beach in a state of near panic. I was in no mood to even greet Wendy. I thought I saw her mother on the porch and felt like demanding she keep her child at home.

“Look, if you don’t mind,” I said crossly when Wendy caught up with me, “I’d rather be alone today.” She seemed unusually pale and out of breath.

“Why?” she asked.

I turned to her and shouted, “Because my mother died!” and thought, My God, why was I saying this to a little child?

“Oh,” she said quietly, “then this is a bad day.”

“Yes,” I said, “and yesterday and the day before and–oh, go away!” “Did it hurt?” she inquired.

“Did what hurt?” I was exasperated with her, with myself. “When she died?”

“Of course it hurt!” I snapped, misunderstanding, wrapped up in myself. I strode off.

A month or so after that, when I next went to the beach, she wasn’t there.

Feeling guilty, ashamed and admitting to myself I missed her, I went up to the cottage after my walk and knocked at the door. A drawn looking young woman with honey-coloured hair opened the door.

“Hello,” I said, “I’m Robert Peterson. I missed your little girl today and wondered where she was.”

“Oh yes, Mr. Peterson, please come in. Wendy spoke of you so much. I’m afraid I allowed her to bother you. If she was a nuisance, please, accept my apologies.”

“Not at all — she’s a delightful child.” I said, suddenly realizing that I meant what I had just said.

“Wendy died last week, Mr. Peterson. She had leukemia. Maybe she didn’t tell you.”

Struck dumb, I groped for a chair. I had to catch my breath.

“She loved this beach so when she asked to come, we couldn’t say no. She seemed so much better here and had a lot of what she called happy days. But the last few weeks, she declined rapidly…” Her voice faltered,

“She left something for you … if only I can find it. Could you wait a moment while I look?”

I nodded stupidly, my mind racing for something to say to this lovely young woman. She handed me a smeared envelope with “MR. P” printed in bold childish letters. Inside was a drawing in bright crayon hues –a yellow beach, a blue sea, and a brown bird. Underneath was carefully printed: A SANDPIPER TO BRING YOU JOY.

Tears welled up in my eyes and a heart that had almost forgotten to love opened wide. I took Wendy’s mother in my arms. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” I muttered over and over, and we wept together.

The precious little picture is framed now and hangs in my study. Six words — one for each year of her life–that speak to me of harmony, courage, and undemanding love. A gift from a child with sea blue eyes and hair the color of sand — who taught me the gift of love.

This story serves as a reminder to all of us that we need to take time to enjoy living and life and each other. The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less. Life is so complicated; the hustle and bustle of everyday traumas can make us lose focus about what is truly important or what is only a momentary setback or crisis.

This week, be sure to give your loved ones an extra hug, and by all means, take a moment…even if it is only ten seconds, to stop and smell the roses. This comes from someone’s heart, and is shared with many and now I share it with you.

I want you to know that if you are reading this, YOU ARE A SURVIVOR !!

Just about now, you may feel like giving up and you’ve gone the last mile……

The fact is, you haven’t given up and you are still on life’s journey.

Or you may be contemplating ending your life, but you know that you didn’t go through everything that you have gone through just to end it like this.

Or you feel weak and tired and maybe even a failure,
but what you haven’t realized is that all your experiences are making you stronger … not weaker.

Think you’re at the bottom and there is no where else to go? Wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrong!!
Dust yourself off, shake your body a little doing a little jiggle and stand up!!

Put one foot in front of the other and start taking steps going upward …… remember, there’s nowhere else to go!!

Feeling alone, unloved, defeated or hung like the Salem Witches or maybe in the Lion’s Den or even nailed to a cross? Your trials and tribulations are crushing you and you can’t breathe, you can’t move … you can’t…..?

You are reading this, so you survived!!

Looking for a job, the pieces to a lost marriage, raising children that think they are already grown, suffering from an illness that hangs over you like a dark shadow, grieving over a loss of a friend, of a child, of a parent or grieving over loosing yourself in despair?

Recovering from a long bout with alcohol, a disease or an illness? Or preparing for your very own transition and you haven’t made peace with it yet?

Searching for life in all the wrong places? Unable to see the light at the end of your tunnel?

Stop trying so hard….. it’s there. You just have to go a little further.

It’s as close as the beating of your heart.
Unable to find love or a place to call your own? Or you need and or want people to know and understand you and unconditionally love you?

Stop searching … and learn to love yourself.
How can anyone love you if you don’t love yourself?

Think about it.
Think about it.
Think about it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~